The Poetry of William Thudsworth St.John-Smith

Ode to Johnny the Brave

"The Meaningless Slaughter of the Light Brigade"

"The Sun on the Dead Cossack's Brain"

"Oh What To Do With A Turk's Severed Foot."

"Nuts!"

His
Posthumous Poetry.

The Poetry of William Thudworth St. John-Smith

On a field in the Crimea
Where many a brave Hussar lay slain
I spied a perfect ray of sunlight
Bear down on a dead Cossack’s brain.

No longer encased in its dark cranial home
Decamped by a claymore’s bludgeon
Now it lay bathed in the sun’s bright light
Near where its owner’s horse had fallen

It was odd to see this organ
The soul vessel to a warrior Romanov
It was laying quite alone and by itself
The rest of him was laying quite a way off.

What a noble throne is the brain!
The seat of man’s intellect and power
But this one laying in the mud
Looked a bit like rotted cauliflower.

What life had this grey lump known?
What fears, what loves, what desire?
I ponder this as a caisson came by
And smushed the brain into the mire.

What a horrible way to lose ones life!
To have one’s brain expelled as yonder.
One minute you ponder what is for lunch.
The next there is nothing with which to ponder.

Many battle lay ahead in this horrible war
As we took on the cream of the Slavic race
From that day forth I resolved with vigor
To keep my brain in its case.